Why don't you quote some real darwinists? Dawkins is a fringe character.

You've never quoted Mayr. Have you ever read Mayr?

He's the co-founder of the modern synthesis, not Dawkins, and he's still writing. Why don't you attack him?

Send a link--I'm not the one who puffs up Dawkins, it's your fellow Darwinists. I just enjoy the easy target.

Two quotes worth pondering from this fulsome ode to Dawkins:

"The betrayal of science that does arouse him to fury comes from religion. Dawkins is an atheist, a strenuous and militant and proud one. He thinks religious belief is a dangerous virus, and that it is a crime to infect the mind of a child with it."

and

"He should be compulsory reading for school boards everywhere."

So much for scientific openess and free inquiry.

Google doesn't turn up much on the net by Mayr, but read this, particularly item 3:

http://www.freedomsnest.com/cgi-bin/qa.cgi?ref=mayern

I guess you'll just have to go to the library. Start with "What Evolution Is," advance to "One Long Argument."

You would learn that darwinism is not what you think.

His #3 appears perfectly compatible witrh Dawkins, his bit about Darwinism being as well proven as heliocentrism is amusing. His obscurity argues against his centralitry to modern evolutionary theory, though helps explain your cultish devotion.

Mr. Judd;

Species are "guided" in "non-random" directions the same way meteors are "guided" in to the Earth's atmosphere by gravity. It's in a non-random direction as well, because far more hit the Earth than the amount one would expect from just the Earth's size. The meteors exhibit a strong "preference" for hitting Earth. Yet there is no determinism about which meteors are impacters. Dawkins may have jumped the shark but that doesn't make everything he says silly.

Unfortunately, while I've been meaning to write on this common habit of imposing step functions on an analog world, I have not yet had the time.

But this force like gravity suddenly stopped functioning, at least on humans? Or do you maintain that our every action is subject to a constant and powerful physical force too?

And odd position for a reviewer and editor of books and recommender of books to take -- dismiss the author who is credited with answering the question Darwin couldn't -- how do species arise? -- without reading him.

I put you in a class by yourself, Orrin. Most antidarwinists I have met are too ignorant or stupid (or both) to follow the argument. You're too intelligent to allow yourself to see it. It might persuade you.

Or, at a minimum, you might not be able to punch holes in the real darwinism the way you do with the poseurs.

OJ:
Have you ever heard of a Monte Carlo simulation?

Random events need not lead to random results.

Besides, just because a process moves to slowly for you to perceive doesn't mean is has stopped. Consider plate tectonics, for instance.

Jeff:

Consider earthquakes

Harry:

None of the thoughtful people I know buy Darwinism whole hog anymore. Only those who need it as a substitute belief system seem to.

Actually, Harry, it seems that you're too smart to buy the more extravagant (and thus interesting) parts of modern Darwinism. What you're left with may be seamlessly logical (though I suspect OJ would disagree), but it doesn't seem particularly interesting or to say anything especially profound: "Here's a process that might account for variation within a species. In the absence of any better evidence, we can assume that it also accounts for speciation."

Harry:

Following up on David's point, what would you recommend a parent tell an eight year old who asks who made the world or why we are here?

David:

No, I agree it's logical. It's just refuted by the evidence and based on faith.

Mr. Judd;

I thought we were discussing the definition in this post, which says nothing about humans or the applicability of the definition to humans.

However, on that subject, would you argue that gravity has been turned off for humans because we have the technology to escape it (flight, space travel)?

I hate to appeal to personal expertise, but the limited space and my typing speed leave me no choice. In terms of evolution, intelligence is a technology that allows "self-modification". Having written self-modifying computer code and worked in self-modifying / reflexive systems, I can state that is is the case that while all of the basic rules remain, the ability to self modify is a qualitative difference in how the system behaves. You're probably too young to remember that once upon a time, putting computer programs in memory was a radical idea. This created computers capable of changing their own behavior. You experience this every time you fire up a different program on the computer you're using right now. On a theoretical level, such a computer is no more powerful than one with a hardwired program, but in terms of practical use there is a massive qualitative difference. The evolution of intelligence is almost precisely analogous to the shift of program storage from hardware to memory - i.e., much of behaviour moved from DNA to neurons.

Now, while the basic rules of computer science remain the same in both cases, the "software" model is so much more complex that using the same rule would be like using quantum mechanics to do chemistry. It may look like a different set of rules, but fundamentally it's the same. In the same way, basic evolution still applies to sentient species, but the complexity is so much greater than it appears to be a different set of rules. But ultimately, if humans don't haromonize with their environment, we'll go extinct, just like any other species.

Doesn't it make a difference that for all other species, humans are the environment with which they must harmonize?

AOG:

I agree. Evolution precisely mirrors the writing of computer code by humans, that is it seems guided by intelligence.

Firstly, Ernst Mayr is not obscure. 'What Evolution Is' is a big seller. Check it out on Amazon.

Secondly, please do correct me if I'm wrong here, I can't improve on the economy of it, but I understand Dawkins' definition of core Darwinism as mentioned to pretty much paraphrase as this:

1) Small random hereditary changes occur (we know this to be fact); some of these survive for knowable, cause-and-effect, reasons, ie. nonrandom reasons; this sufficiently accounts for evolution on a larger scale.

The minimalism and scientific appeal of natural selection seem so obvious to me. I can only believe that your objections are based on an accidental or wilful misunderstanding of it.

Thirdly, no you don't have to wear skirts for field hockey (unless you happen to be female). Shorts are quite sufficient, thank you :)

Mr. Cohen;

It depends on what system level you're interested in. Evolution happens at all levels simultaneously. It is, as we code slingers say, a not very modular design (there's a lot of mixing between the levels). Also, not all species need to harmonize with humans (deep crust bacteria, for instance, aren't affected by humans - yet).

Mr. Judd;

My description is certainly not inconsistent with your view, but I don't think your view follows from it. Also, the analogy would be closer to the Designer making computers rather writing "code" (which analogies to culture, although the Bible would qualify as Divine Code).

DNA's just code in some sense, isn't it?

Mr. Judd;

Close. DNA is the storage for the code of life. Program code itself is a rather etheric thing. It bears the same relation to physical objects as a story does to a book.

I think OJ uses the phrase "guided by intelligence" in two incompatible ways.

Previously, in using a capitalist economy, or languages as analogs for evolution, he uses that phrase to mean that intelligence is required.

Also, in referring to evolution, he also insists on intelligent guidance.

The latter may well be; that is an assertion exceedingly difficult to disprove.

But the respective intelligences' realms are entirely different. The first is endogenous, the second exogenous. Evolutionary theory ultmately rests upon including all the initiators of change within the material system. For economies and languages, even ignoring whether intelligence is an analog for DNA, said intelligence is part of the system.

In the latter sense, the intelligence is external to the system.

The fundamental question then, absent implementation details not yet known, is whether it is possible to explain the phylogenetic tree without having to invoke exogenous influences.

Jeff:

Did you pick a wife or did Darwinian forces?

What is a Darwinian force?

And the appropriate question for you to ask is whether I picked my wife, or some external, supernatural force directed me to.

The former is endogenous, the latter exogenous. The former is within the evolutionary realm, the latter is not.

Did you choose your wife?

She probably chose me.

What does that have to do with anything?

Thus is evolution guided by intelligence.

OJ:
But intelligence from where?

Intelligent Design presumes intelligence from outside the system--a deus ex machina.

Darwinism--Evolution--presumes organisms, or at least those with anything approaching a brain, attempt to make the best choice from the options on offer. Which means, among other things, that Evolution produces non-random results from randomness.

Therefore, your invocation of intelligence is precisely Darwinism, an odd stance for you.

Welcome to the club.

Jeff:

If Darwinism truly does mean that evolution is guided by a series of rational choices then I've less quarrel with it, you're right.

Your last statement is a bit puzzling.

It implies that evolution isn't possible for organisms that incapable of rational choice. It also implies that all variations pose an element of choice.

As far as I know, all birds that ended up on isolated islands without any predators subsequently lost the ability to fly--the kiwi is a good for instance. Was that the result of any choices? Or was it the result of continuous generations of birds containing poor fliers that, in other circumstances would not have survived?

The latter seems likely, but involves no "choice" at all. It only requires the survival of individuals that would otherwise not have been present for a choice in the first place.

Not all birds, but many.

Orrin, you are conflating two (or more) ideas when you use "force." There is no "Darwinian force" that makes a creature do anything or choose anything.

The creature does things of its own volition, or it is acted on by outside forces (like a cosmic ray creating a mutation). The outcomes of these actions are winnowed by a ruthless process called natural selection, but natural selection is not a force.

You keep wanting to sneak teleology into evolution. Fine, but once you do, you've stopped talking about Darwinism.

Peter, as it happened, I had 8-year-olds and they asked more or less that question. I read them the Bible, straight through, Gen 1:1, which took care of the traditional answers. They figured out that that was silly.

Then I read them Abell's "Science and the Paranormal," which was a good introduction for young children in how to evaluate evidence.

Then I read them Brunvand's "The Choking Doberman," which showed them how strong belief has no bearing on the rightness of an opinion.

Then I sent them out into the world, almost perfect little skeptics and extremely unlikely to fall for con artists.

If they had asked why we are here, I'd have said to be good neighbors, and if they wanted to know how we are here, I'd have said nobody knows.

Harry:

Whatever you want to call them, laws, forces, processes:

There has to be mutation.

Mutations have to happen across such a wide proportion of the population that they have a chance to be preserved from generation to generation.

Mutatrions have to either be subtle enough or favorable enough that those with them are still attractive mates.

Individuals with such mutations have to survive at so much higher a rate that they displace non-mutants.

This is all entirely teleological in the sense that you believe that as between group A and group B within a species that group which is better adapted will be selected out by nature to survive. Whatever else we may decide to call natural selection--law, force, process--you believe it to be the sufficient cause of evolution.

The non-teleological alternative would hold that selection is truly random, that group A or group B survives and the other perishes not based on anything but random chance.

I take it you don't believe that to be the case?

Jeff:

All I'm asking is if you consider yourself a kiwi? Did Nature make your mating choice or did you?

OJ:
You forgot heritable variation. That has been sufficient to produce height extremes among isolated populations in Africa (or flightless birds, or sightless cave dwelling animals, etc). No mutation required.

As I understand it, in order for evolution to be teleological, it must be driven towards some ultimate goal by some agency external to the natural system. Your use of the word here seems incorrect. Ignoring implementation details, Evolutionary theory's correctness (as opposed to completeness) stands or falls on teleology. Any evolutionist believes that all the sources of change over time are entirely contained within the system and, other than individual organisms striving for survival and reproduction, has no goals.

Creationism and ID impose an external agency upon natural history that, to this point, is not required for a coherent explanation of natural change. So far, there is precisely no evidence of such an external agency.

Statistical biases are part of natural selection, so holding that the only alternative to teleology is true randomness is wrong.

As for what you are asking, I am still puzzled. First, to say I made the choice is to ignore female mate selection. Besides, my wife's choice is an example of natural selection--she picked the best of what was on offer (clear evidence of a limited selection). Nothing outside the system forced her to do it.

Jeff:

How forgot? Heritable variation is obvious; it's what Darwin observed in the breeding of farm animals around him. Tallness, usefulness of wings, etc. are not meaningful change. In fact, the retention of wings by animals that don't use them arguies against speciation occurring as a result of natural selection.

Orrin, mutation wanders around until acted upon by something (a "founder event").

Most of the time, hair color probably doesn't exert sufficient effect on an organism to decide whether it survives and reproduces or not, although there are examples when it does.

These examples, for humans, can be both external and internal (social).

For the latter, the occasional red-haired Japanese has a difficult time finding a mate and is sometimes killed before reaching the age of reproduction.

Red hair among the Japanese is rare enough to have little effect on the species (Mayr: natural selection acts on individuals to change species). And its deleterious effects are not so pronounced as to purge it entirely, at least over a period of merely a few centuries. (There is also the possibility that it is purged but reappears as a common sport.)

The opening of Japan to outside influences, including blondes, has changed the environment, so that red hair is less selected against now than it was 150 years ago.

It's dynamic.

It seems probably that hair color does sometimes affect survival/reproduction for external means, too, although I am not aware of any definite example in historical times. But the prevalence of dark skins and dark hair in the tropics probably indicates extreme selection pressures at some point.

The occasional albino African is likely due to developmental sports rather than pure inheritance. I am not aware of any African familial line that is all albino, although we have examples of oddities with other characters.

There are isolated villages in the Dominican Republic and Spain where a high proportion of all residents have six fingers on one hand, or six on both.

I understand the messiness of life bugs your philosophy, which wants everything to drive to a conclusion. Climate doesn't do that, and life doesn't do that. Life spends most of its time in precarious equilibrium, and climate spends all its times in equilibrium, but much less precarious.

The same applies to governments. According to your philosophy, they should all be tyrannies.

Harry:

So with all these mutations is it not surprising that nothing evolves?

OJ:
Is it surprising that for all those earthquakes, nothing moves?

Well, actually, things do move. But so slightly that only extremely sensitive instruments can detect the changes over intervals shorter than tens of thousands of years.

Kind of like with natural selection and evolution. Just because the changes happen to slowly for humans to perceive them directly doesn't mean they aren't happening all the time, and for counterintuitive reasons just as Harry cited.

The fossil record leading from land mammals to whales is particularly detailed. Maybe you could review that before concluding nothing evolves.

Or just look at the humpback whale with hind legs.

If that was not the result of evolution, then Life is way stranger than most people think, whether they are Darwinists or not.

Everything evolves, it just seems certain by now that Natural Selection has nothing to do with it.

It may be that Natural Selection doesn't have everything to do with it.

Viruses performing ad hoc genetic engineering was something Darwin could never have envisioned.

Natural selection still acts on the results.

Agreed. Natural Selection can't produce speciation but some species succeed and some fail. Sic transit Darwin.

OJ:
No, you don't agree.

Asserting that natural selection probably doesn't explain all speciation is a far cry from saying it explains none of it, as I clearly stated. As I have mentioned before, it would be nice if you would reply to what I say, instead of what you wished I said.

Your use of the word "can't" implies knowledge certain, which you most certainly do not have.

Jeff:

Read what you said. You suggested, quite sensibly, that the mutation and variation might be caused by something like viruses, unknown to Darwin at the time, with Natural Selection no longer playing a role in variation, only in selection:

"Viruses performing ad hoc genetic engineering was something Darwin could never have envisioned.

Natural selection still acts on the results."

That seems a viable alternative to Darwinism proper.

OJ:
Maybe it is a web problem. On my monitor, there is a sentence before the two you cited:

"It may be that Natural Selection doesn't have everything to do with it."

The first part of the sentence acknowledges there are probably other factors. The second part limits the extent of that acknowledgement.

Just in case it didn't show up on your monitor, of course.

Jeff:

I take what you say too seriously to beliueve that you could chuck Natural Selection as the process that drives Darwinism and try to maintain it too.

OJ:
Darwinism proposed gaussian distribution as the only source of variation upon which natural selection could act.

That there are other sources of variation (read "How the Leopard Changed its Spots" for likely sources I doubt very much you have ever considered) doesn't exclude natural selection from operating on the result.

In engineering terms, one may change the signal generator without discarding the filter.

Which is what I did, and clearly stated.

Jeff:

Yes, that's a denial of Mayr:

"Gradualism. According to this theory, evolutionary change takes place through the gradual change of populations and not by the sudden (saltational) production of new individuals that represent a new type."

You propose that viruses indeed cause sudden change. I agree that you're more likely right than Darwin, but it is a radical change.

OJ:
Your use of language is astonishingly imprecise.

Sudden and radical are two entirely different quantities.

Tie together enough small, sudden, changes, and a circle results. Circles are characterized by gradual changes in direction.

Circle are, therefore, not characterized by sudden changes of direction, as Guinnian Evolution is.